A Time Travel Story

[I accidentally deleted this post from last year while trying to publish my latest. Posted for some Prose time-travel challenge. ]

"Don't go too far."

The sun shone still higher over the cobblestones as the ice cubes melted into the lemonade and the paper straw virtuously softened into decomposable uselessness. The weathered metal chair and table were a frame for sun-rays warming a face and a chest that ached and ached and ached.

His hand lay still over the tabletop as he imagined wedging his fingers into the little gaps of the woven metal rods or knocking with his legs and falling backwards to where he could look straight up at the blue, blue sky. Something some better version of him might do.

It was warm.

He got up and dealt with his cup. He set off down the old road to the white plaster building with the black 764 by the door that he knew was two blocks away. The man he had met with two months ago would be waiting in there for sure.

"In theory, you could go back before this country even existed, the strength of our machine is quite vast. Is there someone you'd like to meet? An event you wish you could have seen?"

"Certainly."

That old man had smelled like coffee and onions, and the building was all white walls and plastic, just like a cheap hospital waiting-room. Standing outside the door in the comfortable summer air, the man took in a few last breaths. The wad of money, the crystal-clear marble, and the little slip of notepaper were still in his pockets. He was ready, he was doing this (somehow). He went in.

...

Click clack-- the old onion-man tickled the machinery as he chatted with his waiting test-subject.

"Are you sure that's the place and time for you?" he asked, sorely chagrined.

"Yes, thank you."

"And only 5 minutes?"

"That's right."

"Gah... could I have picked a lamer person?" he complained to the blinking lights and whirring bits. "Ok," he sighed, "you're all set. Maine, South Portland, 10 years ago. Head on in."

The man took in a breath that shocked him as he opened his eyes to a sky whose blue was softer but more beautiful than that from this morning. The air vibrated with nostalgia and a rush of happiness splashed over his brain and danced around his heartache. It's a moment like this that threatens to swell the heart too much, for there is the joy and also the remembrance of how lonely you really have been. Both swirl in the heart with the blood in great volume and you wonder if it's enough to stop a heart for good. But for a man who has spent a decade getting out of bed despite the anchor of his ceaseless pain, not even this is enough to keep him lying on the ground. His limbs moved as though creatures on their own, and he moved and sat on the bench that waited off the sidewalk.

Checking his watch, he saw that two minutes had passed. He sat back and wedged his fingers into each of the little gaps in the woven metal rods, pondering the sky.

"Any minute now..." He looked down and sure enough, an 18 year old with disheveled red hair and a pensive gait was arriving from a distance. The man waited and looked expectantly at the boy.

"You look just like me." said that boy. The man returned the statement by rising from the bench with a knowing smile (and the uncertainty sloshing in his stomach) and hugging the boy as best as he knew how. The young boy, so hungry and ready for anything strange in his life, hugged him just the same. The strange and symmetrical embrace under the pale blue sky continued for quite some time as they both felt a mixture of knowledge and subsiding doubt.

The man remembering the restraint of time, stood back, and frowned at the watch. With a hasty zeal he shoved into his pockets for the money and the things, and brought them out for the bizarrely calm boy standing on the sidewalk with his hands on the straps of his backpack.

"Here, and here and h--" The marble, then the money, went into the boy's hand. The wrinkled bit of note paper came close and fluttered, suddenly freed into the sky by an abrupt disappearance from the anachronistic visitor. A gust of salty wind blew across the green and grey ground and into the boy's nose as he chased the scrip and pinned it against the asphalt with his fingertips.

The boy stood where he was and unfolded the slip and stared at it with a hard-beating heart.

"I've waited and waited, and it wasn't worth it. Love, You"

The boy considered falling to his knees but instead went and sat at the bench waiting by the sidewalk. He stared at the stack of bills he had just been given. As the wind blew again and the sea-smell charged his lungs, he sighed. What he had to do was going to be very hard.